Oil, gas plan could add 104 wells to Greeley

Greeley is poised to make Colorado oil-and-gas history if plans move forward for two huge, centralized drilling operations that together could put 104 new wells in the city's core.

One of the proposals by Mineral Resources Inc. is for a 67-well complex within a few hundred feet of Frontier Academy Elementary School just off U.S. 34 in south-central Greeley.

Another permit the company obtained from state regulators would put 37 wells within a few blocks of downtown Greeley and the University of Northern Colorado campus.

Loveland is taking notice.

"When I first saw that, I thought it was a typo," Loveland development services director Greg George said. "Sixty-seven? I thought, 'No, wait, that can't be right.'"

Loveland -- on the periphery of the Wattenberg natural gas and oil field, which blankets much of Weld County -- is not likely to see petroleum development on the scale that Greeley already has accommodated.

Urban Drilling Niche

More than 400 natural gas and oil wells pock that city, many of them drilled by Mineral Resources, a Greeley-based company that specializes in urban exploration and drilling.

The company pioneered the practice of locating multiple wells in a single location with its Greeley Directional Project, at the industrialized intersection of U.S. 34 and U.S. 85, where it put 34 productive gas and oil wells in operation between 2005 and 2008.

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The new proposals go too far, say the members of opposition group Weld Air and Water and a Douglas County lawyer who advises them.

"I think it's jaw-dropping that they would propose a facility that large in the middle of any municipality," lawyer Matt Sura said.

"Unfortunately, the Colorado Oil and GasCommission says it doesn't matter what kinds of controls towns and cities might want to put in place."

'We're Not

Wing Nuts'

Weld Air and Water organizer Therese Gilbert, a middle school teacher in Greeley, said the scale of the Mineral Resources plan had pushed people into action in the city with a tradition of accommodating the industry.

"When they started coming into the city, with these huge, multi-well pad sites, an alarm went off," Gilbert said.

The group's strategy is not to call for bans on drilling and fracking, the technology that maximizes oil and gas extraction, but to seek time to study the effects on air and water quality.

"We are not alarmists. We're not wing nuts," Gilbert said. "But we say, 'Question everything. Find out for yourself.'"

Mineral Resources president Logan Richardson said his company spends heavily on making sure its operations will have minimal impact on the city.

Raising Standards

"We already have, here in Colorado, the most stringent air-quality standards in the nation," Richardson said. "Our company goes much further than what those regulations require. We have vapor-recovery units on all of our sites. We don't vent gas when we are flowing back. We are rated as a 95 percent operator."

Richardson means that 95 percent of pollutants generated in the oil and gas recovery process are captured rather than vented into the air.

The company's plans are not yet on Greeley's development review calendar but likely will head for a planning commission hearing this summer, said Brad Mueller, the city's community development director.

'This Is Our Home'

By then, Gilbert said, her group would seek agreements to conduct further study on air-quality safeguards.

"We don't want to battle this," she said. "This should not be a matter of opinion. We want the assurances that only the gathering of some data will provide. We would love to hear that we have nothing to fear."

Richardson said Mineral Resources welcomes conversations with Weld Air and Water and any other opponents of its proposals.

"We open our doors, and we're here all time," he said. "Our cellphones are on. We try to be responsible and respond. We do more than we're required to do, because we live here. Our kids go to school here. This is our home."

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